Are you making/cooking Christmas presents?

Woohooo....I'm on holidays for three weeks! After a ridiculously busy two months, I'm almost bursting with excitement at the thought of getting to play in the kitchen again. For the last 16 years now (since just before our eldest was born), we've made most of our Christmas presents, and they're usually food-based. I feel quite strongly that we all have so much stuff in our lives now, and it's nice to be able to give something consumable that won't add to storage angst for years to come. Also, because they're often only little token gifts (a bag of cookies, some chocolate truffles etc), we can give them to lots of friends and neighbours without them feeling like they need to reciprocate (the last thing I want is to make people feel like they have to give us something back).

In the past we've made:

- hot chocolate mix
- homemade Baileys (really wicked when you use Chivas Regal and Belgian chocolate)
- Pete's chilli jam
- fruit cake
- cookies, brownies and shortbread
- icecream (only makes it to the neighbours)
- chocolate truffles

This year we've branched into preserves and jams, and Pete (who is the jam-maker in the family) and I are thinking of making :

- almond bread
- apricot jam (apricots were $1/kilo at the markets today!)
- nectarine conserve
- chocolate truffles
- lemon curd
- vanilla syrup (using all the homemade vanilla essence that's been brewing for months)

We were also talking today about making nougat, although I have no idea where to start. Does anyone make their own nougat? I have the ricepaper sheets and eggwhites, but that's as far as I've gone!

So...are you making anything Christmas presents? I'd love some new ideas!

Cheers, Celia

In the past I've done most of your list plus salsa, biscotti (well, I guess they are cookies!), chocolate bark of various kinds, and seasoning mixes.

Someone I know just passed along a recipe for what they called Aztec Bark, and it's now on my list!

Chocolate bark, I'd forgotten about that! I've been making it this year with cacao nibs in place of nuts, works a treat. I've also been making hazelnut chocolate, which the boys love, which is just nutella mixed through tempered chocolate, and then set in a slab and cut up. Must make more of that too...

My wife just picked up a bunch of decorative glass jars at the Dollar Store. They'll be filled with hot chocolate mix and given to my daughter's pals.

Cindy makes an assortment of cookies to give away. She's been at it for days. She puts them in attractive tins, with colored paper, and people really seem to appreciate the effort that goes into it.

Here's a sample - before they're cut into cookies. These are my favorites.

Considering the poor quality (and low fill) of most commercial mince pies, The brains of the operation often makes a batch for friends and family, adding a few choice ingredients (glace cherries, pine nuts, spices, etc.) to a standard mincemeat base. Very simple, but they're popular.

One thing worth a try, we've very much enjoyed the Italian blends of honey and (what I presume is pureed) fruit - they manage to retain the acidity and zest of the fruit which really works well with the honey.

regards

Ian

Celia, I want to be on your Christmas list! Wow.
I usually try to do something to send to family members, and to use as hostess gifts during the holidays. In the past I have done the following:

-Chocolate truffles
-Duo of Kahlua chocolate fudge sauce and Kahlua butterscotch sauce (for ice cream)
-Cookies (usually pecan balls, traditional sugar, and raspberry thumbprints)
-Spiced Olive Mosaic (From Silver Palate "Good Times" cookbook -- These were really pretty. I found some squatty wide -mouth jars with cork stoppers and tied a ribbon around the jar neck.)
-Pine Bark (posted this recipe in another thread recently)
-Rocky Road Fudge
The two latter items are very pretty put into clear celophane bags and fastened with some of that silver covered wire with little stars on it.

Hmmm. What to do this year...I'm leaning toward cookies since I missed making them last year.

[Jenise]

Oh Celia, you guys are all so good--I've never 'made' Christmas presents in my life, though I love to receive these homemade gems.

Carrie, you can be on my list if I can be on yours! Does your fudge sauce keep out of the fridge? If so, I'd love a recipe if you've got time to share. One of the reasons I've never made sauce is that I could never find a good one that didn't need to be refrigerated. Thanks!

John, that cookie slab looks delicious. You're a very lucky man - I hope you don't eat all the gifts before Cindy gets them boxed!

And Jenise, luv, when on earth would you have time to make Christmas gifts? You're the busiest person I know in the kitchen, and you've probably fed everyone you'd have given a gift to in December anyway!

[Jenise]

You're the busiest person I know in the kitchen, and you've probably fed everyone you'd have given a gift to in December anyway!

I probably just talk about it more. I'm obsessed with food!

But this year, definitely no time for other projects. I've got a lot on my plate right now, and I'm doing the main course for our neighborhood wine dinner next Saturday too (at which we feed 70 persons four courses).

Celia, I want to be on your Christmas list! Wow.
I usually try to do something to send to family members, and to use as hostess gifts during the holidays. In the past I have done the following:

-Chocolate truffles
-Duo of Kahlua chocolate fudge sauce and Kahlua butterscotch sauce (for ice cream)
-Cookies (usually pecan balls, traditional sugar, and raspberry thumbprints)
-Spiced Olive Mosaic (From Silver Palate "Good Times" cookbook -- These were really pretty. I found some squatty wide -mouth jars with cork stoppers and tied a ribbon around the jar neck.)
-Pine Bark (posted this recipe in another thread recently)
-Rocky Road Fudge
The two latter items are very pretty put into clear celophane bags and fastened with some of that silver covered wire with little stars on it.

Hmmm. What to do this year...I'm leaning toward cookies since I missed making them last year.

Is the pine bark that recipe using saltine crackers as the first layer?

Carrie, you can be on my list if I can be on yours! Does your fudge sauce keep out of the fridge? If so, I'd love a recipe if you've got time to share. One of the reasons I've never made sauce is that I could never find a good one that didn't need to be refrigerated. Thanks!

Yes, unfortunately that is the reason I didn't make it again. Storing it until I gave it away was a pain.

Is the pine bark that recipe using saltine crackers as the first layer?

That is the one. Have you ever made it? People go crazy for it.

Pete's just finished a new batch of jam - he tells me it's "Provence" style - apricots, nectarines, Kirsch (or Kirschwasser) and a touch of mixed spice. It's an absolute gem...

You're the busiest person I know in the kitchen, and you've probably fed everyone you'd have given a gift to in December anyway!

But this year, definitely no time for other projects. I've got a lot on my plate right now, and I'm doing the main course for our neighborhood wine dinner next Saturday too (at which we feed 70 persons four courses).

I rest my case.

My other half loves peanut butter cookies. They're my staple Xmas baking.

Other than that, I will not -- and cannot -- compete with a friend's mom (in Leicestershire, UK) who sends us a Xmas pudding every year from her family batch.

Today, everything was readied for distribution:

Wow!!! John, they look amazing. How on earth do you stay lean?

Oh John....just gorgeous! I love those chocolate "crinkle" cookies with the powdered sugar.

I'm making Canadian bacon from pork tenderloins. They are curing now and I'll smoke and vac seal them this week. They will go in to a basket with some smoked cheese I made. -RP

John, you did make sure Cindy packaged some up to send out to us, right?

John, you did make sure Cindy packaged some up to send out to us, right?

No - please just add that to the list of the other things I've forgotten to do.
We'll save you some.

Celia, I'm going to try that Irish Cream Liqueur recipe. It looks positively tooth-rotting! Thank you for the link.

Fantastic, Jeff!

I found that you could really taste the quality of the chocolate and the whiskey, so you want to get the good stuff. I made a batch a couple of years ago and bottled it in little half cup bottles with hot pink lids. We smuggled them into the pool when the kids were in swim squads, and the other mothers and I used to sit there and drink them - anything to make hours of squad training pass by more quickly!

Oh, one other thing - I dissolved the coffee granules in just the tiniest bit of hot water, otherwise they don't dissolve at all in the cold liquid. And it never, ever lasted a month in the fridge - we always drank it all within a week (as you do).